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US, Mexico seek to revamp fight against drug cartels

AFP

The United States and Mexico on Friday vowed to overhaul their joint fight against drug cartels, during a visit by a high-level delegation including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has said Mexico no longer wants helicopter gunships and other weapons to combat drug traffickers, urging the United States to invest in regional economic development instead.

On his first visit to Mexico as the top US diplomat, Blinken, accompanied by officials including US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, held a working breakfast with Lopez Obrador followed by the main security talks.

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Lopez Obrador hailed a “new phase” in relations, reiterating an invitation to US President Joe Biden to visit Mexico.

Washington has indicated that it is ready to revamp a 13-year-old program called the Merida Initiative that provided US military firepower, technical support and security training.

“After 13 years of the Merida Initiative, it’s time for a comprehensive new approach to our security cooperation, one that will see us as equal partners in defining our shared priorities, tackle the root drivers of these challenges, like inequity, like corruption, and focus not only on strengthening law enforcement but also public health, the rule of law, inclusive economic opportunities,” Blinken said.

He said more needed to be done to disrupt arms trafficking, strengthen port and border security, dismantle the cartels’ financial systems, root out impunity, tackle human rights abuses and address public health issues such as addiction.

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said it was time to say “goodbye to the Merida Initiative, welcome to the Bicentennial Agreement” — a reference to the Latin American country’s recent 200th independence anniversary.

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The United States has given Mexico about $3 billion since 2008 for law enforcement training and equipment such as Black Hawk helicopters.

Lopez Obrador argues that investing in development projects in the region would help counter not only drug trafficking but also migrant flows — another major challenge facing the two countries.

Underscoring the magnitude of the crisis, Mexican authorities said Friday they had detained 652 undocumented migrants, more than half of them children, traveling toward the US border in refrigerated truck containers.

– Merida Initiative ‘dead’ –

Mexico will use the talks to push for steps to speed up extraditions between the two countries and reduce the flow of arms from the United States, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said this week.

In August, Mexico filed an unprecedented lawsuit against major US gunmakers in a Boston court over illegal cross-border arms flows that it blames for fueling drug-related violence.

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Mexico is plagued by cartel-related bloodshed that has seen more than 300,000 people murdered since the government deployed the military in the war on drugs in 2006.

Many experts believe the strategy of militarization has failed because it has resulted in the cartels being fragmented into smaller, more violent cells, while drugs continue to flood into the United States.

The new security framework will focus “not just on crime, but also on the underlying cause of crime,” a senior US administration official said.

“We’re going to be looking at ways we can increase joint efforts to decrease demand for narcotics,” he said.

The two countries would continue to pursue the cartels, including their laboratories and supply chains, the official said.

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But the new strategy would put more emphasis on stopping flows of firearms and drug money from the United States to Mexico, in order to “deny revenue to these cartels,” he added.

Forging a new joint strategy will not be easy, said Michael Shifter, president of the US-based think-tank Inter-American Dialogue.

“The Merida Initiative is indeed dead,” he said.

“Mexico is expected to press for significant US assistance and investment in the southern part of the country, but with budget pressures and other priorities in Washington, US officials are unlikely to be receptive,” he said.

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International

‘No to animal abuse’, the clamor of a march of dogs and humans in Bolivia

Hundreds of police and activists raised their voices against animal abuse in a march in the Bolivian city of La Paz in which they were accompanied by dogs of different breeds and sizes, including a troop of canine agents and newly recruited puppies.

The march called by animal organizations and by the Bolivian Police, through the unit of the Forest Police and Environmental Preservation (Pofoma), whose national director, Colonel Raúl Rodríguez, explained to EFE that the objective of the activity was to “eradicate violence, mistreatment, cruelty and biocide” against animals.

“With this march the Bolivian Police is giving this message to our population that not to violence, not to mistreatment, not to cruelty, nor to biocide against our domestic and wild animals because they are living beings and as such, they have rights, they are animals that have no voice, but they do have rights,” Rodríguez said.

The police chief emphasized that animals “are living beings” that only ask for and require “a lot of affection.”

He also reminded those who own wild animals as pets, that this is “completely prohibited” by current regulations.

“The Bolivian Police already has the legal instruments to be able to proceed to the arrest and referral to the hands of Justice so that they cannot traffic in these animals,” he said.

He also mentioned that the country has rules such as Law 700, ‘For the defense of animals against acts of cruelty and mistreatment’, in force since 2015. Which included the criminal figure of the biocide to punish the murder of an animal with penalties of two to five years in prison.

According to Rodríguez, in 2023 Pofoma treated about 1,400 cases of animal abuse and so far this year there are already 600.

The director specified that eleven people have been sentenced to between three and seven years in prison for these crimes. In turn, about 70 cases are under investigation.

The mobilization traveled through the main streets of the historic center of La Paz. It was led by a troop of canine agents, most of them anti-drugs, who were well uniformed with vests.

Some k-9 agents, such as Vito, a black Labrador, stopped to greet affectionately. Also to receive affection from the people who came to see the march.

Among the most applauded were the new recruits, puppies of German and Belgian shepherds who were in the arms of human agents.

Behind them were groups of ‘civilian’ humans and dogs, such as Oslo, a chow chow puppy that carried a red handkerchief around his neck, and Tony, a huge San Bernardo who caught the attention of the public.

The march was nourished by animal groups and dog clubs of the sausage, pequinese and cocker spaniel breeds, among others. In addition to several police units, such as firefighters, who carried “disguised” cars with snouts and ears.

There was no shortage of boots of ‘Paquito’, the dog that is the mascot of the Bolivian Police, and an enthusiastic group of uniformed policemen with caps that had dog ears and makeup of snouts and whiskers on their faces, who were dancing coordinated choreographies.

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International

Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, diagnosed with a new malignant tumor

The doctors of former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, 85, have detected a new malignant tumor, which is why he will start a new treatment, the former governor reported.

“The results confirm a new tumor diagnosed as malignant,” Fujimori (1990-2000) published on his X social network account.

He accompanied the message of a short video that assured that he will give “a new battle” against cancer.

“Just now that I have regained my freedom, it is my turn to fight a new battle. The results confirm a new tumor diagnosed as malignant, so I’m going to start a treatment with my family,” he said.

In it, he recalled that the first time he was diagnosed with leukoplakia in his tongue was 27 years ago, when he was president, and that then, when he was imprisoned, he was again done “several surgeries.”

“In total, I have had six surgeries in the same place. This is how I have been fighting cancer for more than 27 years,” he said.

On April 30, Fujimori underwent an operation to rule out a tumor at the base of the tongue, as detailed at the time by his daughter Keiko Fujimori.

The surgery was performed “after overcoming (Fujimori) an atrial fibrillation crisis.”

The former president (1990-2000), released at the end of last year thanks to a humanitarian pardon received in 2017, underwent cancer treatment in the past for an injury in the oral area and has had recurrent medical attention for the same reason.

Precisely, his medical record was the reason for former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski to grant him the pardon before he served 25 years of sentence for crimes against humanity.

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International

Petro calls former President Duque a “terrorist” for the “murder” of young people in protests

The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, called his predecessor, Iván Duque, a “terrorist” this Friday, for the “murder” of young people during the social outcuse of 2021, in which, according to social organizations, more than 80 people died violently, most of them from police abuses.

“When 60 young people killed by the State die, burned, tortured, when thousands of young people were arrested, the question is then: who was the terrorist? Who should be described as a terrorist?” Petro asked himself at a government act in the city of Cali, capital of the department of Valle del Cauca (southwest).

He then added: “The president of the republic today has to say that the terrorist was not the popular youth, that the terrorist was the State of Colombia and particularly the Government of the (…) Mr. Duque. The 60 killed in Cali by you were not terrorists, the terrorist was you.”

Cali, and especially popular neighborhoods such as Siloé or Puerto Resistencia, were the epicenter of the protests that took place between April and June 2021 against the Government of then-President Duque (2018-2022), which began because of the discomfort at the possible approval of a tax reform.

The social outsting was 83 dead, more than half, allegedly at the hands of the Police. In total, according to the Ministry of Defense, there were more than 14,000 concentrations, marches and blockades since April 28, 2021.

The ruler explained that there are differences in the financing of the presidential campaigns and charged against his predecessor, former President Iván Duque (2018-2022), from whom he said he received financing with illicit money from the deceased drug trafficker José Guillermo Hernández, known as ‘Ñeñe Hernández’.

“There is a big difference between a campaign, that of Duque, between the money of the drug trafficking of Mr. ‘Ñeñe Hernández’, murdered later (in Brazil), or that in another campaign the money of the Spanish owner of Colsanitas prohibited by the Constitution and by law, to a group of organized workers deliver the little they have so that a left-wing party can become in power in Colombia,” he said.

 

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